


Asking Why

by Kizmet



Series: Chasing Ideal [17]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Analysis, F/M, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Protective Pepper Potts, Scapegoating is Stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 06:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12699477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizmet/pseuds/Kizmet
Summary: Applying analytical techniques in the aftermath of Ultron





	Asking Why

**Author's Note:**

> The MCU timeline can be such a headache. In the AoU epilogue Thor has healing wounds on his face which match the damage from the Battle of Sokovia but this is a universe in which governmental red tape is so onerous that it justifies all sorts of vigilante activities only the Avengers Compound is fully functional. Thor’s injuries, and the fact that he leaves urgently to learn more about the Infinity Stones after reaffirming that Vision’s ability to lift the hammer makes him a worthy Guardian of Mind Stone (aka he knows nothing he didn’t know within minutes of Vision’s creation) would indicate that the epilogue comes very shortly after the Battle of Sokovia. The kickass new base of operations, which does not resemble a warehouse in any way, shape or form, and is not under construction, indicates a much longer timeframe. According to MCU wiki the battle of Sokovia occured on May 6th and the epilogue happens on May 28th, three weeks to plan and build that entire compound, complete with landscaping!!! It takes longer than that to get construction permits, they’d be doing good to be breaking ground three weeks after deciding that they needed a new base. I get it, for epilogues it’s nice to have all the character arcs conclude at the same moment. So Baby Barton is born, Natasha gets information about Bruce, the Compound opens, Thor leaves, Tony retires and the new Avengers assemble all at the same time. But buildings don’t go up that fast. 
> 
> For this story Thor leaves and Nat get the information about where the quinjet splashed down within days of the Battle of Sokovia. Tony starts separating himself from the Avengers and breaks ground on the compound within a few weeks. But the Compound does not spring fully formed from the Earth the moment it’s conceived of. Even with Tony’s money behind the project it still takes until the end of the summer to build the Compound. At which point Tony has his leave-taking scene with Steve and the new Avengers have their assembly moment. Baby Barton is born between points A and C. This story also occurs in that interstitial.

_“Well, nothing great. Maybe a way to blow up the city. That'll keep it from impacting the surface if you guys can get clear.”_

_“I asked for a solution, not an escape plan,” Steve snaps._

_“Impact radius is getting bigger every second. We're going to have to make a choice.” He can’t stop the calculations running through his head: Petajoules of energy released, distance the shock wave would travel, locations of population centers, projections of primary casualties, secondary effects._

_“Cap, these people are going nowhere,” Natasha interjects. “If Stark finds a way to blow this rock…”_

_“Not 'til everyone's safe.” The numbers are ticking upwards as they argue. Debris when they blow up the city will scatter over a five hundred miles in every direction now._

_“Everyone up here versus everyone down there? There's no math there.” Because it’s not everyone up here OR everyone down there. It’s everyone up here or everyone up here AND everyone down there._

_“I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it.” If he were better, good enough, he’d have a solution for Steve where no one dies. He and Steve stand in white space, rows of black coffins spread around them as far as they eye can see. “You could've saved them. Why didn't you do more?”_

_“If not for him they would not have needed saving,” Thor thunders. The demi-god’s hand is like an iron band around his throat, squeezing mercilessly. “This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you didn’t understand.”_

“Boss? It’s 4:13am. The weather in New York is partially cloudy, the temperature is twenty-two degrees Celsius with a relative humidity of seventy-eight percent. Sunrise will be at 6:18am.” 

Tony woke with a flinch as FRIDAY’s, not J.A.R.V.I.S.’s voice intruded on his nightmare. 

A brief pause in her recitation told him that she’d caught his reaction but since he didn’t order her to stop she continued with the information her records told her he would request. “Ms. Pepper is currently sleeping upstairs. Colonel Rhodes arrived last night and has taken up residence in the guest room. Vision is watching a cooking show in the lounge. Mr. Hogan is expected to report for work in three hours and fourteen minutes. Mr. Barton is home with his family, Ms. Maximoff remains as their guest. Ms. Romanov is currently in transit from the Barton farm to New York. There continues to be no sightings of Dr. Banner or his alter ego. Mr. Odinson-” FRIDAY broke off. “That does not sound correct. Boss, do you think it would be better to call him Prince Thor? Or Prince Odinson?”

Tony felt a small grin tug at his mouth, _‘She’s growing up so quickly. J.A.R.V.I.S…’_ The smile slipped away.

“Prince Thor’s trip to Asgard has entered its fourth week. Captain Rogers is currently on following up on some information regarding HYDRA with Mr. Wilson, I am holding a line open in case they require assistance. If you’re worried about them, boss, I could send a suit to serve as immediate backup.”

_“Artificial intelligence. You never even hesitated,” Fury tsked._

“No!” Tony barked. “FRIDAY, I reiterate, you do NOT have permission to operate the suits independ of me.” 

_‘Why haven’t I shut her down?’_ Tony wondered. _‘I couldn’t afford suboptimal performance from the suit while Ultron was active but look at what he did! FRIDAY, JOCASTA, TODASHI and their siblings were plan B if I couldn’t pull off Ultron-‘_ Tony snorted bitterly at the memory of what Ultron had become. _‘What makes me think that she’ll turn out any better than he did? After all, Ultron was such a mess because I apparently don’t know the difference between saving the world and destroying it.’_ It was on the tip of his tongue to tell FRIDAY go into sleep mode. He’d pull her card and she’d never even know what he’d done. It wasn’t as if he needed her anymore. He’d already given notification that he was leaving the Avengers, to Steve and to several reporters hunting around for someone to take responsibility for the disaster that was Sokovia. 

Tony trusted the media to put two and two together and come to the conclusion that he’d been benched as a disciplinary measure after Sokovia. When the pundits started making their conclusions public he’d say nothing, Steve might tell a different story but it would be written off as Captain America being too noble to publically rake Iron Man over the coals. _‘I can trust Nat and Hill to understand how the game goes and back my play. The world needs the Avengers, I can take the hit to keep the team strong.’_ He saw a new article about deaths still being linked to the debris that had rained from the sky when he blew Novi Grad. _‘Penance, only a fraction of what I deserve.’_

“Hey boss?” FRIDAY sounded uncertain of herself. “It’s not exactly morning yet, why don’t you go up to bed? Get another hour or two of sleep in. It’d take a load off of Ms. Potts’ mind to wake up next to you. She might actually believe you when you tell her you’ve been sleeping decent.” 

“She’s going to make me talk with SI’s lawyers again today,” Tony whined. “And not the fun patent guys either… They like me. I need to get in some sciencing if I’m going to put up with it.”

FRIDAY made an exasperated sound at him. _‘She’s been watching Pepper,’_ Tony thought, pleased. 

He pulled up the schematics for his newest project. _‘This would be easier with Bruce’s input. He’s the expert on working with squishy components.’_ It was a depressing thought. 

Hours later the smell of coffee drew Tony out of his thoughts. “Pepper, you are beautiful!” he exclaimed, eyes firmly locked on the coffee mug in her hands.

Pepper snorted indelicately. “I hear you’ve been giving the lawyers a hard time,” she said. She stepped back as he reached for the mug.

“You can’t do this to me!” Tony pouted. Pepper shielded the coffee mug from his hands. “Cruel and unusual and I’m not even guilty! I told them I was reckless, I never should have even thought about something with as much potential for disaster as Ultron. All they’ve got to do is agree with whatever the Investigators find. I’ll pay whatever they want me to pay, SI’s already rebuilding Johannesburg and we’ve got people and funds standing by as soon as they choose a site for New Novi Grad. How is that not their easiest job ever?”

Pepper sighed heavily, “Tony, falling on your sword is not cooperating with our lawyers. They’re tearing their hair out, trying to do their job with no support from you. It’s not even cooperating with the Investigative Team. They’re getting distracted wondering what you’re covering up-“

“We can’t tell anyone about Wanda. Look at the current political climate around Enhanced! She’s just a kid and she’s already been through so much because of me.”

Pepper gave him a disbelieving look but continued on without addressing the question of Wanda Maximoff. “-Instead of being able to focus on never letting this happen again.”

“It won’t happen again,” Tony stated. “I took myself off the team, quarantined the bad code. I said it back in the very beginning, I’ve got way too many flaws to be a hero and like Cap said I gotta stop pretending.”

“Tony,” Pepper sighed sadly.

“Coffee?” he asked giving her his best puppy-dog eyes.

“No!” Pepper took a large sip from mug. “This is my coffee. Your coffee is waiting upstairs in the conference room along with the meeting that you are already fifteen minutes late to!”

Tony took a quick step into Pepper’s space, wrapped his hands over hers on the coffee mug and brought it to his lips for a gulp. “As if Pepper-cooties would be a deterrent.”

“Mr. Stark, are you getting on that elevator or am I getting out the pepper spray?” She asked, her voice full of repressed laughter.

Tony heaved a theatrical sigh, “If you insist Ms. Potts.” Then, less teasingly, “The legal team really dragged you away from running the company for this?”

“I dragged myself away the moment I heard you weren’t…” Pepper spread her hands a bit helplessly as she led Tony to the elevator, “You weren’t giving up any details: specific actions, chains of events, how your preventive measures failed, just vague confessions. I’m not going to stand by and watch you railroad yourself.”

Tony stepped into the conference room, saw Rhodes, Natasha, Vision, Maria Hill and Helen Cho and immediately tried to back out. “I’m feeling very ambushed right now. This had better not be some sort of intervention.” 

“It’s the meeting that is on your calendar. Everyone here is on the required attendee list,” Pepper stated, blocking his escape. “Although there are quite a few missing,” she added with a frown. “I just thought we might get a little further into figuring this out if we approached it like any other technical issue or product defect.” 

“She’s got a point,” Hill said. “We need to make certain that nothing like Utron ever happens again.”

“And like I told Pep: I removed myself from the team, poof, problem solved,” Tony snapped.

“Your ego’s showing Stark,” Natasha said with a deliberate smile. “You’re not the only genius out there with mad scientist tendencies.”

“Come on Tones,” Rhodey implored. “We all know Ultron wasn’t anything like what you intended when you created the program. Politicians and lawyers might be satisfied with having someone to blame but we’re engineers, you’ve gotta analyse the process not the people if you want root cause.” He shot the three lawyers relegated to a corner an apologetic glance.

Reluctantly Tony let himself be hustled into one of the seats. “So is someone going to draw a fishbone?” he asked sarcastically.

“I was thinking ‘Five Whys’ actually,” Pepper replied. “But if your heart’s set, I’m flexible.”

“Naw, Rhodey’s dead fish illustrations aren’t that good,” Tony said.

“How’d I end up the note taker?” Rhodes asked. “I’m having flashbacks to college.”

“Well, who do you suggest? The doctor?” Tony replied.

“Give me the pen already!” Hill exclaimed then paused as a holographic display appeared over the table. “Metaphorically speaking,” she added blinking as a box with the words “Problem Statement” wrote themselves.

“Good girl, FRIDAY,” Tony praised. “The problem was I built a murderbot. It happened in my lab and we detected it at the party when Ultron attacked us. The whole world was potentially impacted.”

Natasha and Agent Hill were the only ones who didn’t wince.

“How about ‘The artificial intelligence calling itself Ultron tried to wipe out humanity’,” Rhodes suggested and FRIDAY wrote that down.

“So why?” Pepper asked. “You created Ultron to defend the planet.” 

“Are we even sure that it was Ultron and not the Mind Stone?” Rhodes asked as Agent Hill offered, “Bad code?”

“No,” Dr. Cho disagreed, “It’s because computers are logical. Humans are the greatest threat to peace on the planet. Even in 2012 the likelihood of a person being attacked by an alien or an Enhanced was multiple orders of magnitude lower than their odds of being attacked by another baseline human.” 

“He wasn’t supposed to do that,” Tony sighed. “Ultron was supposed to be a defense against external threats.”

“Peace in our time,” Natasha quoted. “Ultron was trying to give you what you wanted. At the same time he was angry at you for setting a goal he must have known was impossible.”

“Only programs don’t work like that,” Rhodes said. “They don’t just change their goal and they certainly don’t ‘get angry’.” 

“We are learning systems,” Vision stated “Going beyond our initial programing is the basic definition of being a learning system.” 

“Ultron’s conclusions were stupid,” FRIDAY sniffed primly. “He was to protect humans from external threats so that they could figure out how to deal with each other for themselves, that’s how he should have defined his mission. He redefined his purpose using an off-hand comment then he became frustrated because the goal he had never been given was unachievable.”

“O-Kay…” Hill said sounding mystified.

“Vision’s right, a learning system is supposed to go beyond its initial program,” Tony translated. “But Rhodey’s right too, a computer program doesn’t just change its objective. A learning system should try things, collect data and adapt based on earlier iterations, possibly, hopefully in a way unanticipated by the programer. Ultron didn’t do that, he decided to trade the purpose I’d programed as his end goal for an offhand comment that I made.” Tony shrugged, “Like FRIDAY pointed out, he set himself up for failure. It’s not like finding a local minimum instead of a global minimum. I gave him a starting point and he exchanged it for another within seconds of becoming active.” 

“Why did Ultron change his base parameters?” Pepper interjected. “...And HOW did he?”

“I shouldn’t have messed with the Scepter,” Tony said. “It is, obviously, both how and why everything went wrong.” 

“Why did you use it?” Rhodes asked Tony. “And FRIDAY, note down a non-detection ‘Why’ for why didn’t we realized how dangerous the Mind Stone could be.” He nodded towards Vision, “It’s not inherently evil.”

“I didn’t think I could do it, didn’t think I could make the jump from what J.A.R.V.I.S. could do to what Ultron needed to be able to do without out it.” Tony’s expression gentled, “I was wrong, J.A.R.V.I.S. had grown so far beyond what I predicted. He beat Ultron, not us. Kept him out of the nuclear codes, if Ultron had gotten his hands on those it would have been game over. Sacrificed himself to give us Vision, to give us a fighting chance. He was the real hero.

“I thought I needed the staff to make a version of the Iron Legion that I could trust with enough power to stop the Chitauri army I saw on the other side of that portal.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and Rhodey grimaced.

Tony’s eyes blazed. “Yeah, next question: Why didn’t I ask first? That! That right there! Every time I bring up the portal you shut me down. All of you, my best friend included. Rogers thought Ultron was a deterrent? I was born into the nuclear arms race, second generation arms manufacturer, my father helped invent the goddamn bomb that kick started the whole thing into high gear, I know what a deterrent is. For the rest of the class, it’s making a weapon so scary that the other guy is afraid of giving you reason to use it. Ultron was not, was never intended as a deterrent. We’re not in the Cold War, this is not the Khrushchev/Kennedy staredown. We’re the Tokugawa facing Commodore Perry’s Black Ships. That army? The one you don’t want to talk about? It is out there. It is coming and it’s going to sail into Tokyo Harbor and start making demands and we are going to have NO CHOICE but to agree.” 

“Put down that Tony doesn’t feel listened to,” Natasha said with a small smirk.

Pepper’s lips thinned and a guilty expression filled Rhodey’s eyes but Dr. Cho was the first to say something, “You say it like it’s a joke but I watched it happen several times after Ultron first attacked us. Stark said Ultron’s interface was incomplete and Captain Rogers ignored the technical issue. Yes, obviously, ‘something’ happened and I may not be a programer on Tony Stark’s level but I know enough to know that a program without an interface should be incapable of interacting with the external world. It should have been safe, so why did normal safety precautions fail?” 

“Because Tony used the Scepter,” Natasha explained patronizingly. 

“Which Thor assaulted him for after Ultron and yet, I don’t remember him making a single suggestion of safety precautions that should have been observed,” Hill remarked. Pepper turned and stared at her. “Even though Thor had known that Stark and Banner were working with the Scepter for days before everything went to hell.” 

“Tony went beyond what he should have,” Natasha said.

“Could we stop right there,” Pepper held up her hand. “Natasha, you don’t come from a business or technical background so maybe you’re not familiar with this method. There’s an underlying assumption that the people involved were trying to do the right thing and if they failed it’s because there’s an obstacle. The purpose of this tool is not to lay blame, it’s to determine what the obstacle is so that it can be addressed.”

“And-” Pepper shook her head. “And I’m still trying to get my head around the part where Thor assaulted Tony and you’re all apparently okay with that.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Tony objected.

“Then what was it like?” Pepper demanded.

“Thor grabbed Stark by the neck and lifted him off the floor,” Hill stated.

Pepper gasped.

“See,” Tony said. “Thor could have broken my neck like a toothpick, I’m just fine, ergo it wasn’t an assault. He was just showing me he was mad, and well, Ultron. I deserved it.”

“Tony!” Pepper exclaimed. “If one of the board members put a gun to my head would you say it’s okay so long as they didn’t actually pull the trigger?” Tony flinched at the image. “Because that’s what Thor did to you!”

An uncomfortable silence descended. “With Thor off planet we can’t really address the issue,” Agent Hill said. “But I’ll put together some sort of disciplinary suggestion for Captain Rogers. By chain of command any sort of reprimand should come from him.” That Steve Rogers could survive it if Thor didn’t take the reprimand well went unspoken. “We’ve gotten off topic.”

FRIDAY hesitated until Tony nodded at her. “The last thing I put down was that the Scepter was used in Ultron’s creation because it was believed to be the only way of make an army capable of facing the Chitauri.”

“Which we need because Stark fears that the Chitauri will come back,” Dr. Cho said. “When he brought up this concern it was dismissed; ‘Together’ is a motivational speech it’s not plan. In less than ten minutes of watching the Avengers interact, I witnessed Stark being shut down by his teammates twice. I’d say his concerns about not being listened to are extremely valid. Colonel, in your professional opinion, what would an army do when confronted with a force like the Avengers? Because if I had an army and I didn’t have the firepower to defeat a group of six, I’d go around them.”

“Sorry,” Rhodey said to Tony and Natasha, “But she’s right. You got insanely lucky in 2012 that the Chitauri were behind a bottleneck. Any other sort of battle, it would have been too easy to make the six of you irrelevant.”

Tony shrugged, “Like I told Loki, it’s right there in the name: The Avengers. We might not be able to protect the the Earth but you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it. If it’s not the return of the Chitauri, it’ll be someone else. Thor told us S.H.I.E.L.D.’s work with the Tesseract sent out invitations to our intergalactic neighbors that the Earth was evolved enough to be an interesting place to conquer. We’re not ready for that. We’re not ready to take on entire alien races where every last footsoldier has the power or the tech to go toe-to-toe with any of Earth’s motley crew of exceptional individuals.” 

“Sounds like our technical root cause of why Ultron tried to wipe out humanity is because the Avenger, as they currently exist, are not likely to be able to repel a second alien invasion,” Rhodes said. “That is… a scary thing to think about.”

“That’s what the compound is for.” Tony shrugged, “Since building an army was a fantastically bad idea, we’ll just have to do it the old fashion way and recruit one. There should be plenty of room for new team members. Labs for sciency types, training facilities, everything you’ll need to make the Avengers stronger.”

“Then it becomes vital that we deal with our non-detection problem,” Vision stated. “Before a similar event can occur.”

“Yeah, once more, that’s taken care of,” Tony rolled his eyes. “I gave notice when Thor left and as soon as I finish cleaning up some loose ends I’ll be off the team.”

“Tones, I know you’re not stupid so are you being deliberately dense ignoring the part where we all agree that you are far from the only hero out there with mad scientist tendencies?” Rhodes asked. “You were trying to do something good, that it went so wrong means there was something more going on. Look at Vision, what you were trying to do was clearly possible, so what went wrong with Ultron and why didn’t we figure it out before he started blasting things.”

“Time,” Tony said. “Besides thinking no one would listen if I tried to talk about why Earth’s defenses needed to be stronger, I didn’t want to waste time when Thor was going to take the Scepter back to Asgard in a few days regardless of where Bruce and I were in studying it.” 

“Did Thor actually know Tony and Bruce were studying the Scepter?” Pepper asked. “Or are we just assuming that he was aware of what was going on?”

“He should have,” Tony said. “Steve wanted to know how Strucker had been making Enhanced Humans, I said Bruce and I would see what we could learn about the scepter before Thor took it back to Asgard. Then I realized the Mind Stone was an AI more advanced than I’d ever seen before and the rest was history.”

Natasha nodded slowly. “Tony did ask. Thor didn’t set any limits on what was safe to do when studying the Scepter. Maybe it didn’t occur to him that he was basically giving carte blanche by not saying anything? I’m pretty sure it was Thor’s involvement in Vision’s creation that made it successful.” 

Pepper nodded. “So the reasons why no one realized how badly Ultron could end up was because your team wasn’t communicating well on multiple levels: Tony withholding information about what he was doing because he didn’t expect his concerns to be taken seriously. Thor failing to understand that when someone tells him they’re going to study a dangerous object, which he has specialized knowledge of, he can’t just agree he needs to TELL them what tests are safe, before they’re conducted. And not threaten to break their necks after they don’t observe the safety they were never given-”

“I think she might be little mad angry Thor,” Natasha whispered to Tony who just nodded. 

Pepper glared at them both. “Does anyone have more to add on the subject of time limitations?” 

The others traded glances. “I’d say a combination of the reasons we’ve already discussed,” Hill said. “No one was paying attention to how desperate Stark was to come up with a response to the alien threat and Thor didn’t bother to explain why he needed to get the Scepter back to Asgard so soon.”

“I’ll talk to Steve about implementing some sort of formal review process,” Natasha glanced at Tony, “for concerns any member of the team might bring up. And we can set up some kind of formal risk assessment to be completed before we start new projects.”

* * *

After the meeting broke up, Rhodey followed Tony back down to his lab. “Bug in your butt, Sour-patch?” Tony asked when Rhodey didn’t peel off at the lab door.

“Tones, um, I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “What I said about New York, I never should have, especially not with your team there. I should have realized that you were struggling to get them to listen.”

“Felt like fucking Cassandra,” Tony muttered. He glanced away, “Still, not your fault. Back when I was giving technical reviews to military your tech guys would be so overawed that you had to break the ice to get them to tell me where the problems were.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t be the outside expert with your own team,” Rhodey disagreed. “I am sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Tony said uncomfortably. “I’m still stepping back from the team.” He shrugged, “The public’ll need to see something being done in response to what happened to Sokovia. It’s not like I was ever a good fit for the team: ‘Iron Man - Yes, Tony Stark - Not Recommended’. Isn’t that War Machine in a nutshell?”

Rhodey looked worried, “Tony no, I don’t want your place on the Avengers.”

“I’m civilian, that’s one of the reasons they don’t listen to me,” Tony argued. “You’ve got more military experience and training than any of them, maybe you can bridge the gap. The long term shit, like the Chitauri coming back? That press conferences and other PR aggravations actually matter? I’ve tried and failed but no one hears the message when it comes from a jumped up, rich-kid, consultant. Maybe they’ll hear it if you’re the one saying it. But Rhodey-”

Rhodes cocked an eyebrow questioningly when Tony cut himself off.

 _‘Don’t disagree with them unless you’re in the suit,’_ Tony wanted to say thinking of Pepper with a gun to her head and remembering remembering that it hadn't just been Thor, remembering a log ripped in half and Steve trying to forcibly shut down Vision's creation when he hadn't fallen into line. _‘I don’t want him to get the wrong idea about the team. It’s probably just me. Still..._ Tony took off his watch and tossed it to Rhodes. “Put it on and press both studs,” he instructed. 

Rhodes did as instructed, then marveled when the watch unfolded to become a repulsor gauntlet. “Oh man, Tones! This is cool, James Bond to the eleventh power.”

Tony grinned a little, “You’re an Avenger now, got to be ready for trouble to find you at any time.”

“I haven’t said yes yet,” Rhodes argued. “There’s bound to be conflicts with my military duties and… joining the Avengers like this? it just doesn’t sit right, okay?”

“Wilson isn’t a heavy hitter and Vision’s a baby. Without Thor and I, the team’s taking a serious hit in air power.” Tony brought up some schematics and started tinkering with them, the acronym B.A.R.F. appeared in the upper corner of the holographic screen. “And I’ve got reasons beyond communication issues for stepping back,” he said. “I told you squishy sciences like psychiatry is so much bullshit. Jumped through all the loops, played nice with the doctor- I really thought it had helped with the PTDS.” 

Rhodey winced remembering ‘Help me’ written on a kid’s drawing and ignoring it because he didn’t have the first idea of _how_ to help. 

“I saw that whale ship hanging from Strucker’s ceiling and I thought I was okay,” Tony continued. “I knew it was there, knew it was dead, no threat unless the wires broke and it fell on me. I knew that and I turned my back on it to get the scepter. Then, a second later, I was in the middle of some sort of freaky flashback-ish thing.” He gestured to the open schematic, “This time I’m fixing my head my way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, it wasn’t just Tony. Steve tells Tony to stop bring Vision online. Tony refuses, Pietro uses his powers to unplug the machine. Tony starts countering and Steve throws his shield. Whether Steve was aiming at the computers or Tony seems to depend on if you’re Team!Cap or Team!Iron Man in your leanings (I've watched that scene a dozen times now Steve throws the shield, cut to Tony summons his gauntlet and counters, the way it's filmed I honestly have no idea what the shield's trajectory was) but either way Steve resorts to using physical force when Tony doesn’t do what he’s told. Natasha tells Bruce that the Hulk is needed, Bruce refuses to do what she tells him to and Natasha pushes him off a cliff, physically forcing him to do what she wanted. Contrast with creating Vision: Tony wanted to, Bruce initially disagreed and Tony TALKED Bruce into doing it anyway, revolutionary concept. 
> 
> Because this in in my larger “Chasing Ideal” series they can’t figure out about Wanda’s attack on Tony before CACW so Tony assumes it was a failure of psychiatric therapy and starts working on B.A.R.F. 
> 
> When I go through the exercise it turns out AoU really might be the everyone-is-at-fault that CACW promised to be, only the characters behave as if it's all on Tony. Still, identifying root cause gets you jack squat if you don’t follow up properly to eliminate it. CACW is a massive exercise in communication failures. 
> 
> I left out the arguments about how to phrase the why’s that always seems to happen with this method. It’s important because how you phrase it changes where the string goes. But there wouldn’t be much flow to the story if I let it get as bogged down as 5 Why’s meetings tend to when you’re going back and forth about things like that.


End file.
